The news website Protocol has published an extensive article on the history and status of the popular open source video player VLC, and the story includes new details about the next major release of the software. Among other things, VLC 4.0 will bring a complete overhaul of the user interface.
“We have modified the interface to be a little more modern,” said the president of the VideoLAN foundation, Jean-Baptiste Kempf, to the publication. Kempf had already shown some version of a new interface about two years ago, but it is not clear at this point how much it looks like what the team plans to introduce with VLC 4.0.
Although the article does not list all the changes that will come, it describes some other possible directions and priorities for VLC.
The VideoLAN foundation generally does not look for ways to monetize VLC, but some source of funding or revenue can help ensure long-term support for the project. To that end, Kempf said VideoLAN is exploring a business model similar to Plex, with free video streams supported by ads available on the player. “This is something that can work for VLC,” he explained. But it was clear that nothing is definitive on that front yet.
VLC will also get support for the AV1 and AV2 codecs; AV1 is gaining a lot of momentum for streaming services and other video products today. Finally, VideoLAN is developing a new way to run VLC on the Web, using Webassembly and JavaScript.
VLC 4.0 is expected “in the coming months”, but we don’t know more than that at this stage.
Even with the details of VLC 4.0 aside, it’s worth reading the Protocol article just to get to know the story behind one of the most successful open source projects in the world, if you’re not already familiar (and perhaps even if it is). Here is an excerpt that describes the origin of VLC on a university campus:
The student team that runs the École Centrale Paris campus network had a problem. The university’s Token Ring network had become too slow for students living on campus. For years, technology has done its job by providing access to e-mail and newsgroups. But in the mid-90s, students wanted more. They wanted to download files, browse the web and, most of all, play Duke Nukem 3D, which was impossible in the aging network architecture.
However, the university was unable to provide a network update. In desperate need of an external sponsor, students struck a deal with a major French broadcaster, which wanted to use the campus grounds as a test for an initial version of IP-based TV delivery. The idea: instead of equipping each dormitory with its own satellite dish and decoder, students would find a way to broadcast TV signals on their local network.
“The aim of the project was to show that it was possible to resend the satellite feed and decode [it] on normal machines, which would cost much less, ”said VideoLAN Foundation President Jean-Baptiste Kempf. For this, students developed a video server and a playback application, at the time called VideoLAN Client. The project was broadcast as the students graduated and eventually the team behind it decided to open it.
Read the article for more details.